I'm sorry but this is a completely ridiculous statement. Any bell boy behaving like this is just taking advantage of the foreigner--and look! It works! You're deliberately made to feel uncomfortable until you pay the 'stupid foreigner tax'. Just send him away. He won't go? Call reception, and you can be quite sure he won't be in the hotel tomorrow.

In many hundreds of room nights over 20 years in China spread across everything from desert doss-houses to the very best of newly opened foreign-run hotels I've only ever once (at The Prime Hotel in Beijing, seven years ago) even received a hint that a tip would be welcome (by a light clearing of the throat.)

There is no tipping in China except by gullible foreigners. Just send the bell boy away. He has no right or reason to ask for a tip in China, and is simply abusing you because of your visible foreignness, and this attitude is something that shouldn't be encouraged with a tip. If it becomes known to the management of many hotels he'll simply be fired, and quite rightly, too.

Bell boys at good hotels have a working environment vastly more luxurious than the overwhelming majority of other Chinese, and they are already paid much better than they'd be in many vastly more tiring, difficult, strenuous, and dangerous jobs, and working shorter hours. They are expected by hotel managements to do the job they've been paid to do without any further incentive, and if they're unwilling then there's a long line-up of people who would love to take their places. Rather than being exploited by them, save your charity for the truly needy--the visibly maimed, homeless, and mentally ill, who can be found in plentiful numbers on the streets.

And why weren't they familiar? Because there isn't any tipping in China.

This is just pathetic, and someone is being gulled here. Any Chinese reading this is likely to laugh out loud. Most find this gratuitous handing over of free extra money absolutely incomprehensible, and the subject of much laughter at the expense of foreigners.

The question often arises "How much should I tip in China?" and for the best of reasons, namely a desire to conform with local culture: not to tip 10% if the local rate is 20%, not to tip taxi drivers if it's not usually done, and to tip others who might not be tipped at home, if it's the local culture to do so. There's the utterly laudable desire to conform to local customs.

The local custom in China is not to tip. So, out of consideration for that, don't.

But to repeat, the original question was not anyway about tipping, but bribery.

Peter N-H